Mountain Lion Video – Female Scent Marking Behavior
Dave Martens of Wildlife Callers Blog captured this trail camera video on one of his cougar scouting circuits.
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Over the past two years, Dave Martens has done an outstanding job of adding trail cameras to our mountain lion scouting areas. He’s found that cougars, while they do sometimes walk the same paths as deer and other animals, often take their own paths and travel “off trail” from the rest of the game.
In this video, you’ll see a female cougar (we’re editing another video of her that confirms it) scent (urine) marking a boulder in a hardpan wash. We recently posted a photo of a large male (tom) cougar here – http://tinyurl.com/ykh755y - travelling in this same hardpan.
We put the trail camera back in video-mode and left it on the hardpan. We’re hopeful that the big tom cougar will come back through the area to check her scent marking. The female cougar has been back a few times. When we’re done editing the rest of the videos we’ll get them posted.
Calling mountain lions consistently requires scouting. It’s taken Dave several months of field work to really begin to understand the way mountain lions travel in our hunting areas. With the research that we’d done on radio collared lions and their propensity to travel the same areas over and over, we believe that his detailed field work will pay off over many years of cougar calling.
Comments and questions are always appreciated!
Goin’ callin’,
Mark Healy
My question to you is “why did she pick that particular spot?”
I already know the answer, but I want to hear what you guys think.
This is called “iron sharpening iron”. Lets all get on here and discuss this. Ask the right questions. There is no such thing as a dumb question. This is how you and I get better and better. The who,what,when,where,why, and how. We need to ask the questions, first, so we can get to know the answers to those questions.
Steve,
Great question and I’m not nearly as sure as you are. I will tell you this much about the spot. When we decided to put a camera there, there was A LOT of fox and other scat piled up on and around the boulder. We have taken 60+ photos and a few videos of gray fox and coatis marking the area with urine and scat. The foxes mark the rock almost nightly–sometimes 2 times a night.
There was one lone cougar scat in the area and a scant few bobcat scats. We decided to give it a try anyway and it paid off. We haven’t gotten any bobcat photos.
My assumption of the female marking is this – She is marking an overlap location where her territory intersects with that big tom we’ve taken a few pictures of. From watching a Nature show on Snow Leopards (solitary cat similar to our cougar) that detailed mating behavior, I’m also assuming that she’s letting the tom know that she’s receptive and “in season”. That could be a stretch, which is why I need to go back and see what other video we’ve gotten. I figure if Tom came a callin’ he stopped to see what signal(s) she left behind.
That’s my take – let’s see what some other guys have to say and then you can give us the real scoop.
Thanks for the question,
Mark
My theory is along the same lines, it might be a little less specific, but the same idea.
It’s a spot that gets marked, so she marked it.
“Everybody” (Lions, foxes, coyotes, bobcats, etc) knows thats just a spot you mark. Weather it’s an intersection, or ??? it’s just a known spot for some topographical reason.
I don’t think she had to be in season. The Tom could tell if she was, but I don’t think that’s her motivation to mark. It’s simpler than that.
If you get right on top around here and walk the ridgelines, every little pass you walk through will have scratches, and/or deer hair in the shape of turds. Every time a hillside funnels itself over a main ridge, you’ll find the same thing at that intersection. As the crow flies, there’s spots like this probably every 1.5 miles. I think if they happen to be near one they’ll usually go check it out.
Theory: It’s just the spot to mark, and they all know it, often go to it, check it, and then leave their deposit for that pass.
How close am I?!?!
Steve T –
I hope another couple guys chime in and then Steve Craig can give us the scoop.
Maybe when I get back into the hills and pull the video, something additional will come to light.
Mark
If an area is being marked by a mountain lion, will it reek of urine? I found a spot while exploring some woods that just reeks of urine, kinda like a cat, but after doing resarch I’m not sure if it’s the kind of marking that’s readily apparent to animals that carry their noses 6 ft above the ground.
thanks!
Mark:
Wildlife Biologists are now just beginning to learn how important scent is to animals…
What is evident in the video is that first, it is a Male cat’s scent station. Males mark their territories for several reasons…first to keep other males out. Second – to advertise to females that he is here, and always ready to mate. (In warmer climates, lions will mate year-round) As the male continues to scent mark the area, (every time he comes through)other predators wandering through will also leave their scent. It’s natural for predators to “trump” one another. That’s why all the other scent posts and predator activity. But ultimately, the Tom is advertising to the ladies. (Males exclude all other males from their territories, but “several” female lion territories commonly enter into one belonging to a dominant male)
The video then, shows a female, obviously in heat, advertising to the dominant male whose territory she is in, that she is ready and willing to mate, and the readiness will be evident in the urine she deposits.
Richard,
Thanks for stopping in and reading. I appreciate your addition to the conversation.
Just as an FYI–we got a few pics of a very large, block headed lion with a chunk taken out of one of his ears in this same hardpan bottom. Problem: once we flipped it to video mode we never got him marking, just cruising through. We knew he was there though–coming and going with no particular day/time pattern–just moving as he pleased.
Then, we talked to a hound hunter who’d taken 2 female lions in this same general area. The lion in the video above was never to be seen again–we can only surmise she was one of the 2 taken. And then the male lion was never to be seen again–we surmised he moved to/concentrated on an area that was being marked by another female or set of females.
We moved our cameras to a completely new area and started fresh, but I’ll bet that the area has been taken back over by a new population of lady lions. And, from past conversations with him, I’ll bet Steve Craig would agree that we could put the cameras back now and we’d start getting pictures of new female lions and possibly that same old block headed tom (provided he hasn’t been run down and killed). The area is remote, rich with deer, fox, javelina, a few cattle, and the long & robust ridge and hardpan systems provide access to several dufferent habitat types. It’s a place that will surely re-populate as it’s discovered by travelling lions.